The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
When Your Staff Can't Afford to Live Where They Serve
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The Cost Crisis In Ministry
SPEAKER_00Your youth pastor just gave notice, not because he's burned out, not because of conflict, not because he doesn't love you, not because he doesn't love your church, but because he can't afford right anymore. He's already working hard to kind of target just to make ends meet, and he's not the only one on your team that's making impossible choices. This might not be happening in your church, but it might be happening in your church. I'm seeing it happen more and more in more and more churches. So let's talk about it today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffing.com. And so glad that you joined us here on this Friday. Today we're going to talk about the new ministry math. I was reading and just recently, I believe it was in Christianity Today, they did a little bit of briefing on as an article on some of the trends and things that are happening in the church. And the numbers are actually pretty staggering. The church staff nationwide are choosing between their calling and survival more and more. The economy, the housing costs have exploded, while ministry salaries have pretty much stayed uh relatively flat. And here's what most senior leaders don't realize. Your staff uh and you don't realize because your staff really usually isn't complaining that much. But just because they're not saying anything doesn't mean that they're not possibly just quietly drowning. They're taking second jobs that you don't even know about. They're living with roommates at age 35. They're choosing between car repairs and groceries, and they feel guilty for even thinking about money in ministry. And that's just not healthy. So, what do you do? Maybe you're in a position where you can't even live in the area the church is because the cost of living is just so high. Uh, there are a lot of hidden costs, and a lot of time you're just losing focus because they're distracted. You're losing quality staff because they're exhausted from the side hustles, and you're losing quality staff because it's not that they don't want to stay, they just can't stay. They can't afford to. Now, nobody went into ministry for the money. I doubt. I don't know that I've ever met anybody in my nearly 40 years of ministry that said, hey, I want to make a quick buck, I'm gonna go into ministry. That just doesn't happen. Nobody went into ministry for the money. I but ignoring this crisis isn't spiritual, it's negligent. I was on a call not too long ago, consult call with a church. Hopefully he's not listening. You probably won't remember. It was a while back, but um, he'd asked me, he was gonna get ready to tell me they were gonna hire a youth pastor, and I said, Hey, the days are gone where you can hire a youth pastor for$30,000 or$35,000. And he's like nodding his head, yeah, I get it. Talked a little bit longer, told me what he was looking for. I said, Do you have any kind of salary package for? He kind of got this awkward look on his face and he said, We're paying like$32,000. This topic does come up often because a lot of times churches are, and it's not because they're is it's not because they're trying to take advantage. I'm sure some are, but most of the time it's either what they can pay or they just don't know what a real position is worth. And if you need any help with salary and compensation numbers, reach out to me, todd.church, I can help you with that. But here's let me share with you what some healthy churches are doing. Okay, because we work with a lot of churches, and we work with a lot of healthy churches that uh that are really starting to do this right. How do you make sure that you're paying your staff fairly? Well, I think the first thing you can do is stop start with an honest housing audit. What does it actually cost to live decently in your area? And you might have been living in your area all of your life, or you might have bought your home 15 years ago or even five years ago. That's not the reality of today. What does it actually cost for someone to move into your community and live decently in your community? Not just survive, actually live in your community. That's where you start. You need to know what it costs to live. And then don't come down$10,000 or$15,000 underneath that. You need to try and pay competitive salaries. Sometimes you can get competitive with compensation. Housing allowances help reflect that reality. That's a definite benefit that pastors have, at least they have right now, anyway. So you can get creative. You can do some maybe some down payment assistance programs that you might come up with. Be creative with that, maybe some shared housing with church families to who offer below market rent. I know there are some churches that actually own a couple of apartments that they use for missions families or to house staff. There are some different ways that you can do that. But think about that when it comes to housing. Think creatively outside the box. And then for the rest of the salary, think think beyond the salary. Think things like phone, cell phone stipends, gas cards, health savings account contributions. And once they're on your staff, you need to check it and make sure they're doing well financially. I talk with people all the time. I talk with someone not too long ago whose kids were on state assistance for insurance because their church didn't pay enough. And I asked them, did you does your church know about that? Yeah, they know about it. They're fine with it. That just the things like that just should not be. We need to take care of our own. So ask your staff, how are you doing financially? Are you financially stressed? And don't make them guess if you care. Don't wait for them to quit to find out. We're not talking about spoiling your staff. This isn't about that at all. It's about removing barriers to effective ministry. And if you can't pay well enough for someone to live in your community, people will not stay on your team. When your team is worried about rent, they can't focus on reaching people. We have we have a little rule that we have when we talk to churches here at Chemistry Staffing. We call it the teeth and trombones rule. Okay? This is what it is. When you're thinking about paying someone, pay them enough that they can afford teeth and trombones. Here's what that means. If you have a staff member who has a child that needs braces, they need some work on their teeth, make sure that there's enough in their salary that they can do that. If their child comes home in fifth grade and says, Dad, I want to play the trombone, make sure that you can pay to either purchase or rent that trombone. If they want to be on a sports team, allow enough salary so that your team can actually not just survive, but actually thrive and live in your community. I remember talking to a guy a while back and he was almost in tears. He said, Todd, last night I went out in my garage and I just bawled. Because I found out that I took my daughter to the dentist and he said she needed braces. And I still want to give my daughter. I'm not making this story up, I swear. I just my daughter needs braces, and you know what? I can't afford it. And the church knows it, and they can pay more, they're able to pay more, and they just won't. So I'm looking for someplace else. It is just heartbreaking, some of the stories that that I get to hear from time to time. Here's the bottom line for today, okay? You can't expect kingdom work from people that are in survival mode. Let me repeat that. You can't expect really good kingdom work and kingdom output from people who are in survival mode. So this thing, this week, just one thing I want you to do is I want you to do a real cost of living analysis if you've not done it for your area. Look up the median rent, uh, factor in the gas prices, the salary, and then honestly ask yourself: could your staff afford to live here on what you're paying them? And if the answer is no, it's time for a real budget conversation. If you need some help in this whole area of compensation, man, I know it's hard. And I know that there's so many different things that you can take into account when you're figuring out salaries. This is something we do on a regular basis here at Chemistry Staffing is help churches figure out what their pay scales should be. If you need some help with that, reach out to me. I'd love to have a conversation with you and see if there's a way that we can help you and make maybe we can work together. Reach out to me. Just go over to my website at todd.church. That's the domain name, todd.church. I wanted to make it really easy for you to remember. Todd.church. There's a little form there you can fill out, and it'll pop me an email and we'll set up a time where we can talk. All right. I hope that this has been helpful. I hope you've had a great week. I'm praying for you and your church this weekend that you'll just have a great weekend. And remember, your staff's financial health isn't separate from their spiritual effectiveness. So take care of people. Take care of the people that are taking care of your people and taking care of your church. All right. We'll see you back here again on Monday. Have a good day.
